Arty Fen!
The windpump at Sedge Fen
The start of August brought a new experience for me. Three days running a photography workshop for a group of young people at Wicken Fen Nature Reserve in Cambridgeshire.
‘Arty Fen’ was organised by the National Trust and funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund community engagement project. The aim of this event was to encourage young people to engage with the great outdoors that is on their doorstep through creative pursuits. As well as my photography group there was also a drama & dance group and a videography group (obviously led by other tutors, I had nothing to do with the dancing you will be pleased to know!)
Konik ponies
Banded Demoiselle
What a three days! We spent each of the three mornings exploring some of the many routes around Wicken Fen and photographing everything from windpumps, cows and big skies to insects, flowers and even ripples in the water. During the afternoon sessions we worked on editing and critiquing some of the photos from the day. The majority of my group of budding photographers were using the cameras on their smart phones but that wasn’t a bad thing. The advantage of phone cameras is that there is little need to understand the technical aspect of photography so rather than spending time worrying abut apertures and shutter speeds, we could really focus on the photos, their subject and composition.
The boathouse
Highland cows graze the fen
I’m no stranger to running photography workshops but working with this age group was a new experience for me and with a group of ten youngsters between the ages of 12 and 16 I was slightly concerned before the event that I was jumping in at the deep end. I was of course worrying about nothing, the relatively short days were surprisingly tiring but they were a brilliant bunch who produced some genuinely impressive and original photography. Most of all it was fantastic to see how much fun they had doing so... even when caught out on a boat in the rain!
The culmination of the workshop was an exhibition of prints of their work which we hung from the ceiling in the visitor centre. The exhibition was earlier today and I still have a smile on my face from seeing how proud they were of their work and from all the positive feedback both for the exhibition and for the workshop and ‘Arty Fen’ as a whole.
Thanks to all at the National Trust at Wicken Fen for making this such a success and to Eastern Frames (www.easternframes.co.uk) who pulled out all the stops to get all the photos printed and mounted overnight for the exhibition.
Sadly privacy rules meant I couldn’t take any behind the scenes shots (I will hopefully add some of the official National Trust ones if/when they are available) but I did take a snap of the exhibition and I have included a few of my photos of the wonderful Wicken Fen (www.nationaltrust.org.uk).
Some of the photos on display at Wicken Fen visitor centre